Modern day Canterbury Tales refreshes Chaucer to tell the lost stories of refugees

Posted on August 24, 2015, 6:33 am By krh

In this article in the journal The Conversation, David Herd, Professor of English at the University of Kent, argues that to re-read Chaucer’s famous tales through the eyes of contemporary refugees is to reanimate the classic text in a way that speaks to contemporary readers.

The Ellesmere Chaucer, or Ellesmere Manuscript is an early 15th-century illuminated manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, held in the Huntington Library, in San Marino, California (MS EL 26 C 9). It is considered one of the most significant texts of the Tales.

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Edited by David Herd & Anna Pincus

Featuring Shami Chakrabarti, Kyon Ferril, Christy Lefteri, Robert Macfarlane, Khodadad Mohammadi, Dina Nayeri, Amy Sackville, Philippe Sands, Rachel Seiffert, Natalia Sierra, Bidisha SK Mamata, Simon Smith & Maurizio Veglio

Seventy years after the adoption of the 1951 Refugee Convention, the UK is guilty of undermining the very principles of asylum, inhumanely detaining those seeking protection and ushering in sweeping changes that threaten to punish refugees at every turn.

But the UK’s immigration system is not alone in committing such breaches of human rights. The fourth volume of Refugee Tales explores our present international environment, combining author re-tellings with first-hand accounts of individuals who have been detained across the world.

As the coronavirus pandemic defies borders – leaving those who are detained even more vulnerable – this collection shares stories spanning Canada, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the UK, and calls for international insistence on a future without detention.

Featuring a prologue by Baroness Shami Chakrabarti.

You can order a copy here

Charity Number 1120185

IAA Number N201900073

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